Published since 1993, The Galitzianer is the quarterly newsletter of Gesher Galicia. A selection of articles from recent issues have been put online, and more pieces will be added to this website in the near future. Articles may also be browsed by issue number or by article type. Members of Gesher Galicia can download full PDF's of past issues, and can opt to receive their subscription to the The Galitzianer in either digital or paper format.

Dr. Goldring was a very successful physician and saw himself as an example of the American dream come true. His parents had the goal that all of their six children should succeed in the new land. The oldest son became a successful musician following in the footsteps of his father. The author became a medical doctor in New York City. His younger brother became a successful dentist and the three sisters married and raised families. They all were proud of their heritage and of being Americans. They felt humbled by the opportunity this country provided. The author wrote the book during his later years in the hope that his grandchildren would appreciate and understand their roots and the opportunities this country gave them.

In July 2008, a group of nineteen French Jews took a tour to Eastern Galicia and Bukovina, provided by a Jewish cultural organization, Valiske, and directed by an outstanding guide, Andre Kosmicki. We, part of that group, were in search of our roots, looking for the traces of our parents’ stories about the region and for tombstones of relatives. Having read Father Patrick Desbois’s reports on mass executions in Ukraine – Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews – we thought we knew what to expect.

My mother had no birth certificate, which in Tsarist Russia was not necessary, particularly for girls. To complicate matters, my mother’s marriage certificate lists her date of birth as 1901 and her Polish passport as 1902. Neither shows a day or month of birth. The lawyers we saw refused to touch this case and those who showed the slightest interest indicated that it could prove costly without any promise of success. I therefore decided to give it a try on my own, based on stories my mother had told me over the years about her life in Satanov in Tsarist Russia.

Gesher Galicia is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people research their Jewish family roots in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire province of Galicia, which is today southeastern Poland and southwestern Ukraine. Our organization's primary focus is researching Jewish roots in Galicia, but the diverse community records in our databases contain names that span all the ethnic and religious groups who once lived in this region.